* We present the no. 16 issue (July 2010) of CUBA LIBERTARIA, edited by GALSIC (Grupo de Apoyo a los Libertarios y Sindicalistas Independientes en Cuba). You may obtain a .pdf file of this edition in Spanish at cubalibertaria@gmail.com

It can not be denied that there are meaningful changes taking place in Cuba, though they are few, slow and hard to implement. But they are “changes” nevertheless, that unlike in the past, don’t seem to be the result of simple concessions to external pressure but rather due to the imperatives of domestic needs.

The “dialogue” with the Catholic Church hierarchy is proof that the Castro regime is the mover in a match in which they have decided to forgo check mate and settle for a tie. A tie that means renouncing the monopoly of social representation and stigmatization of the opposition (or at least of a certain opposition) in order to negotiate the resolution of internal conflicts which also means a sharing of the management of society. Such management doesn’t mean that the regime wants to go towards a decisive democratization, returning to the people the power of decision-making, for we know full well that the Church doesn’t want this either.

In any case, these changes are a fact that can’t be ignored by those of us who have struggled for the Cuban people’s right to decide and build the future of Cuba. We must not because those changes are part of a dynamic of protest caused by the growing social malaise in the midst of Cuban society after many years of being silenced and made to suffer. This spontaneous underground dynamic finds public expression in the demand for dialogue on all levels and before which the Castro regime is incapable of responding satisfactorily, but also incapable of repressing efficiently as in the past.

However, the dialogue, in order to be more than a formality, must by necessity transform into a debate, a debate on what is wrong, but also on why things are wrong. In other words: a debate on how to get out of the dead end where the so-called Revolution finds itself in order to return to the Cuban people the freedom, the sovereignty to have an equal say on the future they want for themselves.

-- Libertarian Socialism or Capitalism?

What could be more normal than to have in this debate a meeting of proposals ranging from Marxism to Anarchism, that claim Libertarian Socialism as an alternative to authoritarian socialism or capitalism? This debate is very old, but its unquestioned timeliness is evident in the contributions we publish. We present to the readers of CUBA LIBERTARIA works by Pedro Campos, a member of the Cátedra Haydeé Santamaría and the Observatorio Crítico, and Gustavo Rodríguez, militant in the Movimiento Libertario Cubano. The reader can judge for him/herself the coincidences and discrepancies in these proposals by the Cuban democratic and revolutionary Left.